Seven years after her debut, Jisoo finally released her own solo album, “ME,”  last month. Part of Blackpink—a girl group with an enormous fanbase— Jennie debuted as a soloist first in 2018 with her song “Solo”. Four years later, fellow members Rose and Lisa released their own solo albums in 2021 and last month, Jisoo finally followed. The group debuted in 2016, and fans hoped for Jisso to release her solo for years. As the last member to debut as a soloist in her successful group, fans held high standards for her.

Jisoo dropped her first solo album “ME” on March 31; the album consists of two songs: a title track called “Flower” and a second song called “All Eyes On Me”. A portion of fans loves the song because it contains a smooth but exciting instrumental in the song “Flower”. Due to her love for instrumentals, she included them in her song. The chorus composes an acoustic elegance and invigorating sound with an additional classy and laid-back feel. The song represents Jisoo’s love for pop, such as her cover of “Clarity” by Zedd on tour. Her song “Flower” discusses leaving past relationships in the past; she says goodbye to those previous relationships and sings with her strong, confident voice. She chooses not to change herself for her partner, the song does not sound sad, but rather bold.

“Out of the two [songs], I liked ‘All Eyes On Me’ more and ‘Flowers’ was really good, it was definitely like a really good vibe compared to what Blackpink usually puts out. It was definitely really good to see that side, especially because the other members didn’t have that kind of down-to-earth, soft vibe. The vocals were really incredible, ‘All Eyes On Me’, a little repetitive near the end, but I still liked the song,” junior Eli Dock said.

Her album garnered 1.31 million copies from just the pre-orders and gained 44 million views within 24 hours on YouTube. Her song “Flower” debuted at number two on the Billboard 200. Her song caused an increase in her group’s YouTube channel’s subscribers; she also earned the most-watched music video of 2023. Unfortunately, despite all this success, others believe that this song and album did not garner enough attention compared to her other members. After Lisa released her song “Lalisa”, fans all over the world held high expectations for her solo album; the song suits her taste and voice, but the song feels slow and boring. The song struggles with catching the audience’s attention; fans only enjoy the music video itself as a result of her constant change of clothes and bright colors. Unfortunately, people can easily forget the music video, because the song holds nothing catchy that can draw the audience in. 

“No, I think that it definitely met my expectations and it’s definitely not what I expected. I’m not really a big Blackpink fan, mostly because I’m not a big fan of the vibe of their songs and it’s not what I usually listen to; meanwhile, that solo album she put out is more like the vibe of the songs that I listen to. I hope to be able to see her try a different genre and songs,” Dock said.

The Chant’s Grade: C-